Reviews

The San Francisco Symphony last week tried to attract a younger audience, with a populist bent. While I applaud the idea, the success lay in increased ticket sales, not in delivery of a pleasing aesthetic experience.

A very special recording from Jake Heggie features works that address love and loss with beauty and care, assembling one of the finest collections of American singers ever to grace a contemporary song collection.

With a first-rate cast, world class conductor, and superb period instrument orchestra, the El Cerrito–based company reinvented as Berkeley West Edge Opera has taken another major step forward into the future with Xerxes.

The Makropulos Case, Janáček’s penultimate opera and the last production of the San Francisco Opera's fall season, is a roaring triumph in nearly all ways, starting with a stunning performance by Karita Mattila in her role debut as Marty.

When a veteran soprano, lauded for her lyrico-spinto portrayals, takes over as Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at San Francisco Opera, hopes are high for a late-season triumph.

The traditional Japanese art remains wedded to folk custom, but with a distinctive New World edge.

When Melody of China and Asian Improv Arts teamed up for “Shanghai Stories,” a concert of jazz and Chinese classical and folk music, exoticism brought a lacquered newness to familiar pleasures.

Twice, in Sunday’s all-star-name evening of string trio music at Davies Symphony Hall, the center held.

In the hands of Philharmonia Baroque, expert interpreters and a seasoned period-instrument orchestra, it becomes apparent why 18th-century audiences were hungry for orchestral repertoire by the bucket load.

The Santa Rosa Symphony consists of about six dozen talented musicians, but during its performance Saturday, piano soloist Valentina Lisitsa stole the show. This 30-something, blonde, steely-fingered Ukrainian-American has technical virtuosity to easily match any pianist of her generation, and her musicality is out of this world.